


Will You Tell Me About Mama?

by porkcutletbowltrash



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Family Angst, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Family Secrets, Gen, Mentions of Child-Abandonment, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Otayuri, Might be triggering to some, Original Character Death(s), Reminiscing, Yuri as a child, fluff if you squint, mentions of abandonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porkcutletbowltrash/pseuds/porkcutletbowltrash
Summary: “Why d-did she leave m-me then?” Tears were still flowing down the blonde’s cheeks.Nikolai smiled sadly and hugged his grandson tighter to him, resting his chin on the blonde soft baby fine hair, “I don’t think she really had a choice, malen'kiy” The older man felt tears welling in his own eyes before he felt the wetness rolling down his own cheeks in soft trails.The story of Mama Plisetsky.





	Will You Tell Me About Mama?

“Dedushka?”

Nikolai Plisetsky smiled down softly at his grandson who had sat down on the floor in front of him not ten minutes ago asking for the older man to braid his hair, “Yes my Yuratchka?”

“Will you tell me about Mama?” He blinked and felt himself pause for a moment when the seven-year old’s words followed into the comfortable silence. The pause would have been unnoticeable to most, but to Nikolai, it felt as if the silence had gone on forever. He figured his beloved grandson, his Yuratchka, would ask eventually about his mother. He was actually surprised the boy hadn’t asked sooner, but even with the delayed questions, he hadn’t been prepared fully for this moment.

“She was very beautiful…” He finally whispered hoping to gain some time to think of what to tell his sweet grandson, “You look just like her. She had blonde hair and the most beautiful green eyes, I’d ever seen. You have her smile.”

“I do?” The little boy tried to lean his head back to gaze up at the older man, but his head was pushed back gently into position so Nikolai could finish the fishtail braid Yuri had asked for. He’d been at it for over five minutes now, had started over once already and he wasn’t wanting to restart after being halfway done.

“Yes, and you have her button nose.” He gave a soft melancholy laugh as he thought of the beautiful woman that had loved Yuri with everything she had had; his daughter that had passed so suddenly. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to say goodbye to her; to give her one more hug, one more kiss to the cheek, one more “I love you, malyshka”.

“She sounds pretty.” The boy sighed softly.

“Very pretty.” Nikolai agreed.

They were silent for a bit longer as he finished braiding his grandson’s hair. He had always asked Yuri if he wanted to cut his hair, but the boy had been adamant that he wanted his hair to be long, saying he liked the way it shimmered around him in the sun, making him feel like he was very pretty. He couldn’t help but smile at his grandson and always agree – Yuri was very beautiful for a boy, with his more feminine looks and ways, not that the older man minded. Yuri was perfect just the way he was, he was his sweet Yuratchka.

“D-Did she love me?” He could barely hear the tearful whisper from his grandson in front of him, but as soon as the soft words left Yuri’s mouth, the older man gently pulled the boy into his lap and hugged him tightly as he wiped tears away from the boys soft cheeks that still hadn’t quite lost their baby fat.

“Oh, Yuratchka. Yura, listen to me.” Nikolai said as he pulled Yuri’s face so they could meet their eyes, startling green to slate grey, “She loved you so much. You were her everything.”

“Why d-did she leave m-me then?” Tears were still flowing down the blonde’s cheeks.

Nikolai smiled sadly and hugged his grandson tighter to him, resting his chin on the blonde soft baby fine hair, “I don’t think she really had a choice, malen'kiy” The older man felt tears welling in his own eyes before he felt the wetness rolling down his own cheeks in soft trails.

 

o.O.o

 

“Will you tell me about her?” Nikolai Plitsetsky paused from where he was stirring the filling for the Belyashi on the stove. Both Yuri and him were standing in silence for a moment before Nikolai responded.

“What do you want to know, Yuratchka?” He glanced over at the sixteen-year-old standing next to him. Yuri had been helping him make the meat stuffed piroshky; kneading the dough and forming it into a log shape next to his grandpa. His hands were covered in flour and he had a small dusting of flour on his left cheek where he must’ve brushed his hand against while working in the warm kitchen.

He’d stop working on the dough to play with the pieces of dough sticking to his fingers, his green eyes set on the silver ring on his right finger as he spoke softly. Not five minutes ago the boy had been lively telling him about his time at the Grand Prix final in Barcelona, Spain and all about his friend, Viktor Nikiforov, and the older man’s fiancé, Yuuri Katsuki. He had met Viktor a few times before and had immediately taken a liking to the older skater. Viktor seemed to watch over Yuri, making sure he was okay in St. Petersburg. He’d never met Katsuki, but from what he had seen on TV and from what Yuri had told him, the Japanese man seemed to be just as nice as Viktor.

“Everything. I want to know everything.” Yuri said as he turned to look at his grandfather.

Nikolai gave a soft sigh and a gentle nod. His Yuratchka was sixteen (where had the time gone!) and he was old enough to know everything that had happened. Whenever Yuri had asked him about his mother before, he had always given small pieces of information here and there – she was beautiful, she had loved him, she used to take him to the park when he was little all the time, she was the one to teach him how to build a snowman. He’d told him things that were safe; that were happy memories of the beautiful Larissa Plisetsky who Yuri looked so much like.

“Alright…” Nikolai said as he went back to stirring the meat so it wouldn’t burn to the bottom of the pan, “Where would you like me to start?”

He could practically feel the eye roll his grandson threw him (he’d been used to Yuri’s sassy behavior since he had first held the small baby in his arms), “From the beginning…”

He couldn’t help but smile at the irritated tone, “Larissa was your babushka and I’s last child; my favorite child if I do say so myself. Parents always say they don’t have favorite children, but it isn’t true. We all have that one child that we connect with more than the others. We love all our children equally, but we always have one we like more.” He didn’t need to look at Yuri to know the questioning look he was giving the older man, “You’ll understand one-day Yuratchka. When you have children, you’ll know what I mean. You and Otachka will each have a favo—“

“Beka and I are just friends!” Yuri yelled as he blushed deeper than Nikolai had ever seen him blush. He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know how much his Yuratchka cared for the Kazakh skater. The blushes that graced Yuri’s cheeks every time he mentioned Otabek Altin weren’t the only give away to the older man about his grandson’s crush on the man.

Nikolai chuckled softly and waved Yuri down, “Sure, sure. Anyways, Larissa was my favorite between her and Jelina. She was the sweetest little girl one could ever meet.” He smiled as he thought of his youngest daughter, “Her dream was to become a dancer; she wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy in the _Nutcracker_. Your babushka would take her dance lessons after school every day until she was old enough to get there on her own. She was the most beautiful ballerina.”

“A true prima ballerina…” Yuri had mumbled softly to himself as he continued to watch his grandfather intently, his reddened cheeks almost back to their normal paleness.

“Yes. When she turned sixteen, your babushka and I let her audition for the Kirov Ballet company. She had worked so hard to perfect her audition performance; she’d spend hours upon hours at the dance studio. I use to have to go there and drag her home once it was past ten.”

“Did she get in? Kirov is one of the most world-renowned ballet companies…”

Nikolai smiled widely and turned to his grandson, “She got on her first try, Yuratchka.”

Yuri’s face broke into a grin, “Mama must’ve really been a beautiful dancer to have made it in on her first try.”

“She was absolutely gorgeous on stage. She moved to St. Petersburg and performed at the Mariinsky theater in many different ballets. _Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Etudes_ to name a few. The first few couple of years she was on as a…uhm…she was a secondary dancer. Not a prima ballerina, but…”

“Part of a Corps de ballet?” Nikolai nodded at Yuri’s suggestion.

“Yes. But by the time she was 19, she was the prima ballerina of the troupe. That was her rightful place on stage.”

“Did she ever get to perform the _Nutcracker_?”

Nikolai’s smile faded a bit, “She never got to be the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

“Why not?”

“That’s where the story thickens, I suppose.” Nikolai hummed and tapped the spatula he was using on the side of the pan of meat and turned off the heat that was under it.

“What happened?” He could feel his Yuratchka’s green eyes looking at him, he could feel the nervous and questioning tension between the two.

“She was traveling with the troupe through Russia before heading back to St. Petersburg as their ending of their tour. Samara had been the last city before a final performance in St. Petersburg at their home theater. Larissa had met someone in Samara and within the week they were staying there, the two had fallen in love. He followed her back to St. Petersburg and stayed there with her for the couple of months that she had off before performing again. He left not long after she had gotten pregnant. She told me that he had a wife at home who he wasn’t being faithful too.”

“My Papa was…” Yuri trailed off dumbfounded before suddenly becoming angry, “That bastard…”

“Not quite, Yura. It’s not like what you think it is, “At Yuri’s surprised expression he continued, “Let me explain. After he had left, she found out that she was pregnant. She came home after leaving the troupe and stayed with your babushka and me. She had been so upset when she had left the troupe; she was going to be starring in the _Nutcracker_ that year.”

Yuri hung his head softly and frowned softly, “It’s because of me that…”

“No,” Nikolai said as he put a rough weathered hand on his grandson’s soft blonde hair, “She had always said that you were the best thing that ever happened to her.”

“But, I…”

“No. Let me explain. You wanted to know what happened, yes?”

Yuri looked up at the old man with questioning eyes and nodded weakly, “Yes.”

“Then let me continue, Yuratchka,” Nikolai gave his grandson a gentle comforting smile, “She came home. We cared for her. She went into labor one snowy November day and gave birth to her daughter.”

“I have a sister?”

“More or less. Clara only lived for a few hours before passing away. Larissa was devastated.” Nikolai could feel his voice fade as remembered that fateful day. He had been the one to drive his younger daughter to the hospital while his wife had sat next to the girl who was just barely twenty, trying to keep her calm as they tried to get to the hospital as fast as they could. Larissa had gone through a hard pregnancy and had had an even rougher labor. He remembered coming into the room after she had delivered to see a small fragile baby in her arms, tubes, and wires connected to the small bundle of blankets that she held close to his daughter’s body as she cried. He remembered what it had felt like as he held the small child in his arms knowing that the infant wouldn’t be alive for more than the rest of the hour. There hadn’t been a chance to save the small baby before her heart had stopped. He remembered holding his daughter close as the doctor’s carried the small lifeless infant away as she sobbed heavily.

“H-How did Clara…”

“Heart defect. They couldn’t have done anything to save her. Larissa held onto her almost her whole life before she passed away.”

Yuri couldn’t understand why he was suddenly crying. He had lost a lot of people to the cold vastness of death and yes he had cried. But he had never met Clara. He had never met his older sister that had died after having such a short life. It wasn’t right for someone so young, someone who hadn’t even had the chance to live before dying, to pass away.

Nikolai patted his head softly, “There’s more to the story, Yura.”

He nodded softly and listened to his grandfather’s voice, “Okay…”

“Larissa was devastated, of course, and when she came home she went into a severe depression that lasted for months on end. Babushka and I were worried sick for her. We tried to get her to see someone for the post-partum depression and for her grief, but she wouldn’t even let us into her room most of the time. The turning point was when Jelina came home to visit.”

“Aunt Jelina fixed all of that…?”

“More or less. Anyways, Jelina had always been a free spirit. She was flightily and never liked to be tied down. She wanted to travel, to see the world, to live her life to the fullest.” Nikolai rolled his eyes and gave a smile to his teary grandson, “Some of the things she did though was pure stupidity. It drove you Babushka insane how many men she brought home when she was a teenager. She was a wild child for sure. The day she turned 18, she left home with just a note on the fridge saying that she was off to love her life. We never knew where she was or where she had gone, though we did look for her and try to contact her.

“It was a few months after the loss of Clara, a day in late March when Jelina came home out of the blue for the first time in four years. Of course, we were all elated to see her when she had come, even though she was one of the many surprises that came with the visit.”

“Surprises?”

“She came with an engagement ring on her finger, a one-way ticket to some foreign country and a three-and-a-half-week old baby boy with the most beautiful ocean green eyes and soft tuffs of hair. Jelina had met a French man about a year beforehand and they fell in love. He had a steady job at the time and couldn’t follow her all over the world. She didn’t even tell him that she was pregnant with you, Yuratchka.” Nikolai pushed a blonde strand of hair behind Yuri’s ear so he could see his grandson’s eyes. Yuri had been a very cute baby, even if he had been skinny and small when he had seen him for the first time.

Yuri’s eyes were wide as he looked up at his grandpa with shock, “You mean that Larissa Plisetsky isn’t…”

“Aunt Jelina was your birth mother. But she’s your Mama. I promise.  As soon as Jelina had said that she was leaving you to us, Larissa had taken care of you like her own baby. You didn’t heal all the pain of losing her Clara, but you definitely pulled her out of her slowly out of being totally shut down. And you looked just like her, Yuri. It almost felt like it wasn’t an odd coincidence. It was like you were meant to be hers.”

“B-but, Jelina…why’d she leave me? Did she not—“ The tears Yuri had been holding back since the mention of his…cousin?...sister? (he didn’t even know anymore what Clara was) had begun to fall in thick streams. Nikolai pulled his grandson into a bear hug and rested his chin a top his Yuri’s silky blonde locks.

“Jelina loved you enough to leave you behind, Yuri.” He mumbled softly, “Jelina…she may have been the elder sister, but she was anything but responsible. She wouldn’t have been able to care for—“

“That doesn’t make it hurt any less!”

Nikolai hummed softly and gave a breathy sigh, “I know, Yuratchka. I know. It took us a long time to understand why she did this to her baby. Larissa was absolutely livid; she refused to ever speak to her sister again, but she took care of you. You had very quickly become her whole world. We don’t know why bad things happen sometimes, but we can always hope that something good will come out of it, right?”

Yuri looked up at him with teary eyes, “But my Mama didn’t care—“

“Yuri, don’t you see? You were, you still are, so loved. So, so loved Yura. Don’t ever doubt that…”

Yuri sniffled as he wiped his tears angrily with the back of his fist, trying to pull out of the older man’s arms, “But—“

Nikolai just held fast to the struggling teenager.

 

o.O.o

 

He had let the boy calm down for a bit before continuing to tell him stories. He had allowed his Yuri to go to his room for a bit to be on his own while he finished up the piroshky. It wasn’t until later in the evening, after a near silent dinner and many hours of Yuri spending time in his room alone, that his Yuratchka had come out of his hiding place to talk to him; a hairbrush and hair ties in hand. Yuri perched himself on the floor in front of his grandpa, presenting his longer hair to him.

“D-do you mind braiding my hair, Dedushka?”

“Of course not, Yuratchka.” He hummed softly as he set the paper down that he had been reading and took the brush out of Yuri’s hand, “I’m sorry, Yuri.”

Yuri sniffled and tilted his head back so Nikolai could reach his bangs, “Not your fault.”

“You’re upset…I’m sorry to have upset you like this…”

Yuri was silent for a moment before he gave out a shaky breath, “Can you tell me more about Mama?”

“I dunno if that’s a good id—“

“Fuck Aunt Jelina.” Yuri voiced, suddenly angry. He’d cried over someone who didn’t give a damn about him. He’d cried enough over that. Jelina Plisetsky was just another person that had dicked him over. She wasn’t the woman who he briefly remembered from so long ago, “Tell me about Mama, please, dedushka?”

Nikolai hummed in agreement and began to speak softly to him once more, “Your Mama loved to hold you. You were never much of a cuddlier, but when she held you it was like you turned into a whole new baby – one that wouldn’t allow her to put you down. You’d cling to her which was fine until she finally started going back to the ballet studio again. Prying you away from each other was an event of itself, so eventually your Babushka would go to Larissa’s practice and she would sit with you and watch your Mama dance.”

Yuri felt himself smile softly as his grandpa continued, “You use to love it when Larissa would wear her hair down because you’d curl your fingers around the pieces of hair you could wrap around your tiny fingers. If she wore her hair up, you would cry until she put it back down. Babushka gave her a haircut once since you didn’t let her wear her hair up and it was getting in the way, but as soon as her hair got shorter than to her shoulders, you wouldn’t stop crying. She never cut her hair that short again.”

“It sounds like I cried a lot as a little kid…”

“No. You were a quiet baby for the most part. You clung to Larissa, you’d watch her dance. You’d keep more to yourself unless Larissa was with you, eventually, you warmed up to Babushka and I. The only times you were loud is when Larissa didn’t hold you the way you liked or when you would laugh.” Nikolai smiled softly to himself as he continued to run the brush through Yuri’s hair. The two seemed to glide into a comfortable silence, even if it was only momentarily.

“I-I remember her somewhat. I remember going to the zoo with her once. I remember seeing the otters swimming around.” Yuri mumbled softly.

“You’ve always loved animals Yura. You use to beg us to go see the kitties in the park after you’d gone to the small zoo in Lieuallen Park. You’d sit and watch the tigers and lions for hours if you could, but your Mama would always drag you off to see the otters, which were her favorite. You’d huff and puff about it at first but then you’d be just as entranced by their swimming as you were by the tigers and lions.”

Yuri gave a small chuckle, “I even knew which was the superior pet back then.”

“You were so angry when the zoo shut down for the winter, too.” Nikolai twisted the fine strands of Yuri’s hair into the beginnings of a French braid as he spoke, “But you got over that pretty quickly once you saw the ice rink that had opened across the street. You use to beg Larissa to take you, so she finally did.”

“Mama took me to the rink for the first time?”

“Of course. Babushka and I had only taken her and Jelina a handful of times in their lives, but Larissa had always loved going even if she wasn’t very good on skates.” The older man chuckled mirthfully, “She was a beautifully graceful dancer but as soon as her skates hit the ice, she was a train wreck. She could just barely stand up on her own.”

Yuri found himself chuckling too, “I would’ve loved to see that.”

“I think,” he hummed, “We just might have a picture of them somewhere. Babushka was always taking pictures of the girls, all the way up until she got pretty sick.” As he tied off the braid, Nikolai stood and walked over to the bookshelves that had been filled to the brim with different types of novels and photo albums that had been filled with the pictures his wife had taken.

He flipped through many years’ worth of memories as he looked at pictures of his family as he came to sit next to Yuri on the floor (knowing that later on Yuri would have to help pull him to his feet). He saw pictures of his beautiful wife, all dark curls and warm golden brown eyes as she smiled at the camera. Pictures of Jelina had come through eventually, the same dark curls that her mother had sitting pinned up as a younger Nikolai pushed her on the swing. Soon Larissa had been added to their family pictures from over the years; bright blonde hair and big green eyes being very stark against the other three members of the Plisetsky family. Birthdays, Christmases, school portraits, vacations all passed before his and Yuri’s eyes, showing how everyone grew older within a few pages of time.

“Here we go.” Nikolai smiled when he finally saw pictures of his two beautiful daughters tying ice skates onto their feet, smiling and laughing together.

“They look so excited.” Yuri hummed as he leaned closer to his grandpa and looked over the pictures.

“They were. They’d wanted to try it for years, but we finally gave in when Jelina asked for her birthday one year. We found those skates at a small thrift store that went out not long after. Jelina’s were too big and Larissa’s were too small, but they didn’t care.”

“That could’ve been the reason that Mama and Aunt Jelina had a hard time skating…”

“Maybe, but it didn’t seem to matter once they rented skates from the public rink, either. Jelina was more inclined to the ice, but not by much. They fell so many times.” Nikolai pointed to a faded color Polaroid of Yuri’s birth mother to show his grandson the funny moment in time. Thirteen-year-old Jelina Plisetsky looked to be wobbling on her feet as she tried to push forward, utter fear and excitement both showing on her face at the same time. In the next picture, her younger sister Larissa had already fallen onto the ice and was sitting in a mangle of limbs, laughing as she began to push herself up.

“They were awful at it…” Nikolai didn’t need to look at his grandson to know that he was smiling.

“Yes, they were. I dunno where you got your talent from, Yuratchka.” They both chuckled and continued to look down at the pictures in front of them; flipping through memories and moments in time that only half of them were familiar with. Pictures of graduations and pictures of Larissa performing, pictures of Larissa and Jelina with friends and pictures of the Plisetsky family camping together. Yuri could see the time when Jelina had run off had hit. He’d seen the time Larissa had fallen in love, fallen pregnant. He smiled sadly at the one picture his dedushka had of Larissa and the frail barely alive baby Clara in her arms. He saw the pictures of the time when Larissa’s eyes were haunted with grief.

And then he saw the moment when a green-eyed baby boy had entered into the pictures. Every single photo of him had Larissa right next to him. He saw the light come back into his Mama’s eyes as she held him tightly in a hug, pressing a kiss to his temple in the still frame as he smiled widely at the camera.

“I wish she hadn’t left us…” Yuri turned to look at the older man next to him who was smiling sadly at the photos in front of him, a single tear running down his cheek.

Yuri laid his head against his grandpa’s shoulder softly, “I don’t think she really had a choice, dedushka.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna say that I'm sorry for possibly making you cry. I fell down a dark hole the other night and I ended up here. I always wondered what Yuri's parents were like, where they were, etc. I don't like the idea that Yuri wasn't loved by his parents, even though he was left alone. So here is what I came up with. What did you all think of the plot twist? Please don't hate me for writing this. Love you all! - Sam
> 
> p.s. I'll be posting something fluffy next, so have no fear!


End file.
